French President Nicolas Sarkozy is no stranger to drama. But now the details of his personal life are set to hit the big screens in a new film documenting his rise to power five years before he was elected in 2007.

Cunningly dubbed La Conquete (The Conquest), the film sheds new light on one of the biggest dramas in recent French politics: the desertion of the President by his First Lady just after he won the election. He is then shown spending his first day as president searching in vain for the wife he married in 1996, Cecilia Sarkozy, a former top model and mother of his youngest son Louis, 13. They divorced a year later. Sarkozy then met his current wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni.

Directed by Xavier Durringer and produced by Mandarin Cinema, it is the first ever movie about a French president to be released with the official still in office. Historian and screenwriter Patrick Rotman, who collected anecdotes from key witnesses to flesh out his narrative, he insists it depicts real life events from the five year period of Sarkozy’s pre-presidential life.

And who plays the coveted part of Sarkozy on screen? Denis Podalydes, a renowned (balding) French actor who wears a special wig designed to help him resemble the president. Surely not the most flattering casting choice, but something tells NewsFeed Sarkozy’s fading popularity in France might be more of a concern for him than his receding hairline. (Via Huffington Post)